Ren's Inner Civil War
by BallerinaBlues
Summary: After attending a charity fashion show, Ren becomes upset about her weight. What happens when she decides that despite all her assets, she's not perfect and needs to be? Rated PG for sensitive material dealing with eating disorders.
1. The Fashion Show

Disclaimer: I don't own Even Stevens, Disney, or any of the characters contained in this fanfic with the exception of Natasha.  
  
Ren has always seemed like a character who could be prone to depression or eating disorders. This fic deals with the latter; if you don't like that, don't read it. The story is finished, but I've only posted the first five chapters; if people like them, I'll post the rest of the story, but if it doesn't seem like anyone likes it, I won't. So if you like it, please review! Okay, that's all, on with the fanfic! (  
  
Ren Stevens was always the picture of perfection. She was a straight-A, honor-roll student and had been since elementary school. Her outfits were always in fashion and always matched down to the belt and hair clips. Her makeup was impeccable each morning and lasted until the three-o'clock bell. She worked as a waitress for the money and as an intern at the local newspaper for the experience. In between it all, she found time to pose as the activist, putting in hours at the animal shelter, and to keep up with her duties as junior class president and head of the school newspaper.  
  
Ren always made sure that her Saturday afternoons were free. Usually, after her morning duties at the animal shelter, she'd go to her friend Ruby's house, and they would find something to do for the rest of the day together. This particular Saturday afternoon, however, would be no typical movie or mall trip. Ruby, Ren, and their friend Monique had tickets to a charity fashion show-complete with backstage passes and permission to bring home one dress of their own choosing! As soon as the last dog had been fed, Ren washed her hands, practically leapt into the family station wagon her mother let her drive, and arrived at Ruby's in less than ten minutes.  
  
"Geez, Ren, that was quick!" exclaimed the ever-perky Ruby upon opening the door. "Ready to go see the newest spring fashions?"  
  
"Of course!" Ren answered. "I can't wait to bring home one of the dresses- it could be the perfect junior prom outfit!"  
  
The girls laughed and started on their way to pick up Monique. Of course, their fashionista friend was just as psyched as they were to be going to such a chic event. An hour later, they were seated, three rows back from the end of the catwalk and ready to have the time of their lives. Every model who came out was more beautiful than the one before-and the dresses! Ren particularly liked a 1940s-style spring-green calf-length dress with a halter and a belt, but felt that she could take home any one of the gowns and be happier than she'd ever been in her life. The model who wore her favorite dress was named Natasha, according to the announcer, and had the same coloring as Ren. Ren prayed that the dress would not be taken by someone else before she got backstage.  
  
After the fashion show, Ren, Monique, and Ruby showed their VIP passes to the stage crew, who granted them admittance backstage. Ruby headed straight for a bright red strapless gown--just her style! Monique squealed when she saw that her favorite turquoise, asymmetrical-hem dress was still around. But Ren's beautiful spring-green gown was nowhere to be seen. She had just about lost hope when Natasha came in carrying it across her arms and hung it up near a mirror! Ren made a beeline for the dress, ducked into a small room off the main backstage, and pulled the dress off the hanger.  
  
She slid the skirt over her head. That was the easy part. Now for the clingy bodice. Tug, tug, tug--try as she might, Ren just couldn't get the bodice to pull down over her torso. So she tried it the other way around- stepping into the dress. Still no such luck. Frustrated, Ren tore the gown off her body, left it in a heap on the floor, threw on her own clothes haphazardly, and stormed back into the main room, where Ruby and Monique were wearing their dresses and giggling in the mirror.  
  
"Look, Ren, don't we look divine?" Monique beamed. "But where's your dress, girl?"  
  
"It didn't fit, okay?!" Ren shouted. "Leave me alone for a minute, I need to find that model." 


	2. I Will Be Perfect

As Ruby and Monique looked at each other in complete confusion, Ren left the room in search of the model who had worn the beautiful green dress. She searched the bathroom, the fitting rooms, and a few rooms which seemed to hold nothing but reporters. Ren finally found Natasha, much shorter than she remembered and dressed in ratty jeans and a pink sweater, in a corridor on her way out.  
  
"Hi, can I help you?" Natasha asked Ren in a bored tone.  
  
"Yeah, actually, you can," Ren began. "I had a VIP backstage pass-one of the ones that lets you bring home a dress-and I really liked this one green dress you were wearing-"  
  
"The Betsey Johnson?" interrupted Natasha, seeming more interested.  
  
"Yes!" said Ren. "That one! I wanted to take it home with me so badly, but it didn't fit. I was wondering--how much do you weigh?"  
  
"Ninety-seven pounds exactly," the model answered, "but I'm about four or five inches shorter than you are."  
  
Ren blocked out the second part of Natasha's response. Ninety-seven pounds, she thought. That's almost twenty pounds less than I weigh! Without even saying goodbye to Natasha, she bolted down the corridor and back to the dressing room where she had left the gown. Checking the tag, she saw that it was a size 0, three sizes smaller than her own size 6. Ren wanted to cry, but instead she resolved to lose the twenty pounds she needed to lose in order to fit into the dress. Hanging it back up, she hung it over her arm and emerged back into the main area, where Ruby and Monique were waiting for her, concerned looks on their faces and their own clothes on their bodies again.  
  
"Honey, is everything okay?" Ruby asked a little timidly. Neither she nor Monique had ever seen Ren as upset as she had been fifteen minutes before, and to see her so seemingly composed such a short time afterwards was unnerving.  
  
"Yeah, things are fine," Ren said brightly-a little too brightly, perhaps. "Come on, let's go to my house. We can rent some movies on our way and sit in front of the TV until I have to bring you guys back before curfew." If Monique and Ruby were suspicious, Ren thought, they sure didn't look it. The three girls hopped back into the Stevens family station wagon, on their way to Blockbuster. The three had no trouble agreeing on movies (they chose The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink, on a Molly Ringwald theme), but when it came time to check out, problems ensued. Monique had taken her box of Dots and Ruby the Snickers bar she always liked, but Ren's hands remained conspicuously empty of her usual Butterfingers.  
  
"Come on, Ren, we're all getting candy," coaxed Monique.  
  
"Actually, I'm saving my money," Ren fibbed. "You know how expensive college is, and we have to apply next September. I want to help my parents out a little bit by paying for living expenses." To Ren's relief, her friends seemed to accept this excuse for the moment, and they paid for their movies and candy. At the Stevenses, the girls had a wonderful time with the Ringwald movies, but Ren's mother kept bringing popcorn and pretzels out for them, which irked Ren more than a little. On the second bag of pretzels, Ren excused herself and brought the bag up to Louis' room. Her brother was more than happy to receive the gift, which he expressed immediately by sticking a pretzel in each nostril. Ren rolled her eyes, but thought, Better in his nose than in my stomach, and returned to finish the movies with Monique and Ruby.  
  
That night, Ren lay awake in her bed, stomach grumbling and body tossing. If that green Betsey Johnson dress hadn't fit, she wasn't perfect. She hated to think what would happen if she weren't perfect. Her parents were so proud of her because of her scholastic and work-related honors. If she was fat, then none of that mattered, because if she was fat, she was not the perfect Ren Stevens everyone knew. The thought scared Ren so much that she sat straight up in bed and whispered, to nobody in particular, "I will be perfect. I will be perfect. I am not perfect anymore, because I'm fat, and I need to be perfect. I will be perfect." 


	3. Deception

On Monday, Ren arrived at school looking impeccable and with her homework done accurately and thoroughly, as usual. Somehow, however, it didn't give her the same sense of satisfaction that it normally did. Every time she looked in the mirror, she saw that no amount of makeup and no amount of flattering clothes could hide the fact that she was ugly and fat. So rather than bringing money for a school lunch (fattening and full of caloric preservatives, she knew), she had brought a small paper bag with a carton of Colombo Lite and exactly six carrot sticks. Ren had told her mother that the food was for an after-school snack, but it was actually going to be the only food she ate all day. Pretending to have gotten up late had excused her from the normal two fried eggs and two slices of toast, instead grabbing half an English muffin on her way out the door.  
  
Come lunchtime, Ren was so hungry she hadn't taken nearly as good notes in Advanced Placement U.S. History as she usually did. She was upset about the notes, but not about the hunger. She ate the yogurt as slowly as she could, so that by the time the bell rang for fifth period, she still had four of the carrot sticks left. As the gang was getting up from their table, Ruby asked, "Ren, are you feeling sick? You don't usually eat hamster food for lunch."  
  
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, I felt really crummy yesterday," Ren said, using the same excuse she'd used on her parents the day before. Then, she had what she thought was a stroke of genius inspiration. "By the way, Ruby, can I come to your house this evening? You know we have to work on the school newspaper write-up on the fashion show."  
  
"Of course," Ruby answered. "I'll tell my mother to throw some extra vegetables in the stew so you can eat with us."  
  
"Oh, that won't be necessary," Ren reassured her friend. "I'm only going to be at your house until about six, and I know that's when you eat, so I'll eat at home later."  
  
"Suit yourself," Ruby shrugged, "but my mom makes a mean vegetable stew."  
  
Ren let her friends go ahead of her and ducked into the bathroom. Pulling out her cell phone, Ren called her mother and told her not to expect her home for dinner, because she'd be eating with Ruby's family. Mrs. Stevens didn't have any problem with the plan. Though she felt guilty for lying to her best friend and to her mother, Ren felt like she was on top of the world. Awesome! she thought. Now my total calorie intake for today has been only 250. Not bad for my second day of dieting.  
  
All through the seemingly endless afternoon, Ren had difficulty concentrating. She found her mind wandering to how she was going to avoid eating too much over the next few days, and how she could fit extra exercise into her day. She had only six weeks to lose the weight she needed in order to fit into the green Betsey Johnson dress. After the prom planning meeting after school, Ren drove across town to the gym, where she put in an hour on the StairMaster, as opposed to her normal 35 minutes. However, after the lengthy amount of exercise, she felt so tired she didn't think she could manage her weights regimen, so she bought a PowerBar at the counter and left for Ruby's. All the way to her friend's house, she beat herself up mentally for eating the 180-calorie nutrition bar. This nearly doubles my calorie intake for the day, she thought angrily. I have got to be better about this! When she arrived at Ruby's, the girls finished the article for the school paper, then worked on their pre-calculus homework together.  
  
"Ren, you are so good at this!" Ruby exclaimed, as Ren finished a difficult trigonometry question. "How do you manage to be so perfect?"  
  
Ren answered modestly, "Oh, I'm not perfect. Nobody's perfect." In her head, however, she was thinking, How can you look at my flabby body and think I'm perfect? Maybe the rest of my life is, but until I lose this weight, I, as a person, will not be perfect. 


	4. Spreading Herself Too Thin

All that week, Ren repeated her routine-waking up "late" so she missed breakfast, eating a tiny lunch, and making excuse after excuse to miss dinner at home. Since she had such a busy schedule to begin with, missing dinner was not a problem at first--she just had to claim that she had a late meeting with her class officers, or that she was doing an article on the school play and had to attend that night's rehearsal. By Friday, however, concern had begun to form in her mother's mind. Before going to bed, Mrs. Stevens knocked on her daughter's door.  
  
"Come in," Ren called abstractedly. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, cutting out pictures from a magazine for her advertisement for the junior class bake sale. Her mother opened the door noiselessly, smiled kindly at her daughter, and sat on the edge of the bed.  
  
"Hi, sweetheart," her mother said.  
  
"Hi, Mom," Ren said, setting down her scissors. "What's up?"  
  
"I wanted to talk to you, honey," Mrs. Stevens began. "I've noticed you haven't been home for dinner much lately, and that you've been in an especial hurry to get out the door in the mornings these days."  
  
Oh, crap, Ren thought, she knows about my diet. I know she's going to give me the "you're beautiful just the way you are" speech. I hadn't prepared for this yet...  
  
"I'm wondering if you don't have too much on your plate right now, sweetie," her mother continued. "You're always hurrying to some after- school meeting, and whenever you aren't doing homework you're working with members of one of your clubs. I understand you want to get into a good college, but you don't need to sacrifice so much to have extra references on your applications."  
  
Ren breathed a silent sigh of relief. So she thinks I'm spreading myself too thin, Ren thought, not catching the irony in her wording. Well, if I can keep up that guise, everything will be fine. "Don't worry, Mom, my academics aren't falling behind," she reassured her mother. "And I really enjoy doing all these activities; I love my schedule."  
  
"It isn't your academics or your happiness I'm worried about, I'm worried about you burning out," said Mrs. Stevens. "At least try to come home for dinner three times during the school week, okay? And we all miss you at the dinner table!"  
  
"Okay, I'll do the best I can, Mom," Ren replied, her heart beginning to sink. She kissed her mother's cheek and after the door swung shut, she flopped backwards onto her bed. Her mom didn't suspect her diet, but she did want her to come home for dinner. The thought was making her feel sick before she even had to sit at the table. To alleviate her stress, Ren lay down on the floor, crossed her arms over her chest, and began to do sit- ups. As she counted, she felt her stress float away. None of the pressure mattered anymore. All that mattered now was that she got skinny, that she lost more weight. Already she had gotten rid of three pounds of globby fat. Ren loved the way she didn't have to think about college or stress on this diet. All that mattered were the numbers-calories, minutes of exercise, and pounds. It made life so much simpler. When she could no longer pull her body upright to meet her knees, Ren crawled beneath the covers, exhausted, and went to sleep. 


	5. Emotional Overload for Everyone

Four weeks had passed since the start of Ren's diet. What had been mere odd glances in her direction by her friends and family had turned into long stares of concern and attempts to decide what was wrong. Every day, Ren went to the gym after school and put in at least an hour and a half, sometimes up to two hours, no matter how fatigued she felt. When she actually showed up to dinner, she picked at her plate, moving food around to make it look as though she had eaten more than she actually had. Lunch had become a joke; she spent it in the library catching up on the homework she had missed the night before due to her fatigue. Late at night, Ren would go to the kitchen and take out a hard-boiled egg, making sure to eat only the white and not the cholesterol-containing yolk. Mornings, she would eat a piece of toast and fill her waterbottle at the faucet in order to fill her up and make her less hungry. Sometimes, Ren wouldn't be able to resist the temptation and would eat so much she felt her stomach would burst, but afterwards, her resolve only strengthened.  
  
Monique and Ruby had begun to notice how Ren's pants hung limply off her hips, how the tops that once fit snugly around her torso and arms were now baggy and shapeless. Though neither one wanted to say anything to their friend directly, they were beginning to feel as if they had no choice. They were watching the once-athletic Ren pant her way around the school track once before asking the gym teacher to get a drink. It was a warm spring day, however, that finally pushed Ruby and Monique over the edge, made them decide they absolutely had to talk to their friend. Ren was wearing her favorite black pants, which were now slouchy instead of fitted, and a long-sleeved pink top. Ren ordinarily never passed up an opportunity to wear cute summer tank tops and knee-length skirts, but here she was on a beautiful spring day, dressed as if it were March. The matter was settled: they had to talk to their friend.  
  
They found Ren in the library that day during lunch, hunched over a heavy textbook, as usual. Ruby, usually so spirited and outgoing, found herself too worried to speak, so Monique took charge. "Ren? Why aren't you in the cafeteria?"  
  
"Because I'm doing homework," Ren snapped quietly. "Now go away and let me finish this reading, will you?"  
  
"Listen, Ren, we're getting worried about you," Monique began. "You missed last Tuesday's afternoon newspaper meeting, and one of my friends said he saw you at the gym across town that afternoon. You haven't been showing up to lunch. You fell asleep yesterday in French class and couldn't focus even when your eyes were open. You can't even make it around the track without-"  
  
"Go away, okay?!" Ren hissed. "I'm doing fine. It's just a little stress. We're nearing the end of the year and I have to keep up with classes and start reviewing for exams. Besides, as junior class president, I'm on the prom committee, and prom is in just two weeks. Everything is great." Her tone wasn't convincing.  
  
Ruby finally found her voice. "Ren, look down at your arms. They're so thin they could literally snap, and don't think that a long-sleeved top can hide that. Your clothes don't fit anymore; you've obviously lost weight--"  
  
"Get out of here!" Ren practically hollered, earning a stern glare from the librarian. "I don't want your help and I don't need it! Nothing is wrong!" Hands trembling, Ren closed her book, placed it on top of the others on the table, stood up, and attempted to lift the heavy stack. She dropped all but one, knelt to gather them, struggled to stand, and finally flounced angrily out of the library, her bony hips switching in aggravation. Monique and Ruby looked at each other sadly and sat down at Ren's vacated table, placing their heads in their hands. How could they possibly help their friend if she wasn't willing to accept any help to begin with?  
  
Storming down the corridor, Ren found the nearest girls' room and pushed the door open. Fuming, she opened the door to the nearest stall and sat down, seething at her friends. How dare they condemn her for what was obviously necessary? How dare Ruby tell her she looked awful, when she already knew it? How dare-And before she knew it, Ren's head was in her hands and tears were spilling between her fingers. Shivering, Ren opened her backpack and pulled out her cardigan sweater, pulling it around her shoulders as she sobbed alone in the bathroom stall, trembling and unsure where to turn. 


End file.
